[a. (through mod.L.) Gr. ἐλατήρ one who or that which drives.
The adoption of the Gr. word into mod. Lat. (in sense 1) seems to be due to Pecquet (1651), whose English translator, however, usually rendered it by ELATERY.]
† 1. The expansive or ‘elastic’ property inherent in air or gases; hence, more widely, = ‘spring,’ ‘elasticity.’ Also fig.
1653. trans. Pecquet’s Anatomical Exper., 90. By its [the Atmosphere’s] Spontaneous dilatation (which I call Elater) [orig. quem Elaterem nuncupo].
1660. Boyle, New Exp. Phys.-Mech., xxii. 162. The swelling … and the springing up … were not the effects of any internal Elater of the Water.
1682. Sir T. Browne, Chr. Mor. (1716), 109. Persons … having the Elater and Spring of their own Natures to facilitate their Iniquities.
1711. F. Fuller, Med. Gymn. (1718), 30. Gives ’em a better Tone, or Elater.
1730. Stuart, in Phil. Trans., XXXVI. 349. The Elater of the Guts.
2. Zool. Linnæus’ name for a genus of beetles (now the family Elateridæ) possessing the power of springing upward from a supine position for the purpose of falling upon their feet; also, a member of this family, a skip-jack.
1802. Bingley, Anim. Biog. (1813), 142. The Elater or Skipper Tribe. The Elaters fly with great facility.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., ii. (1876), 31. At Bahia, an elater or beetle … seemed the most common luminous insect.
1873. Blackmore, Cradock Nowell, xxx. (1883), 168. She didn’t know an elater from a tipula.
3. Bot. An elastic spiral filament, or elongated cell, attached to the sporangium or spore-case in certain Liverworts (Hepaticæ), to the spore of Horse-tails (Equisetaceæ), etc., and serving to discharge and disperse the sporules when ripe.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 324. Spiral fibres, called Elateres, within which the sporules are intermixed.
1866. Treas. Bot., II. 641/2. The elaters which accompany the spores are distinct spiral vessels.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 472. Equisetaceæ … spores of one kind, attached to 4 clubbed elastic threads (elaters).
